11-36-20 Burnley St James Street

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We are delighted to have located an image of Martins Bank’s Branch at St James’s Street Burnley. A number of former staff from the Craven District have been waiting patiently, hoping that we could, and on this occasion, we must thank Julia, one of our good friends at the Frith Collection® who came went above and beyond to come up trumps with an atmospheric and busy shot from around 1955

This is about eight years before the Branch was closed and relocated to MANCHESTER ROAD. St James’s Street and 13 Hargreaves Street Branches were both closed down at Whitsuntide 1963 and the combined business moved to purpose-built premises on the site of an old cinema in Manchester Road.

In Service: Pre 1928 until 31 May 1963

Image © Frith Collection® c.1955 Ref B251024 and used here under licence.

This story is told in full on the page for Manchester Road, but here is an extract which puts into context the magnitude of moving two branches into one…

1963 03 MBM.jpg Most people will remember Whitsuntide, 1963 as a week-end of blazing sunshine spent by the sea, or on the hills, or golfing, or just sitting in the sun. The staff of the two Burnley branches will remember it as a week-end of evacuation and invasion, Dunkirk and D-Day rolled into a lost week-end—the evacuation of Hargreaves Street and St James Street into the new Manchester Road premises. The exercise had been planned with the precision of a military operation but, as so often is the case with military operations, the strength of the enemy was miscalculated and on this occasion the enemy was time. For months we had watched the site for the new branch being cleared and had nostalgically recalled the old Savoy Cinema, where we saw the first 'talkie' and where in the cafe we used to meet our girl on Saturday evening and where one could gossip over a coffee and chocolate biscuit with a group of friends until 10.30 at a cost of 6d per head. We had watched the excavations for the strong room and during the appalling winter had seen the same excavations so deep in water that it was suggested we were to open the first Dive-in Bank: as the opening day drew nearer we had realised it was going to be a close touch…

In our Staff Gallery below, the staff you see have all been listed as having worked at “Burnley Branch” and it may well be that some of them worked at either St James’s Street or 13 Hargreaves Street. We will probably need to rely on the memories of former Staff to be able to put everyone in the right place!

	Our thanks go once more to Robert Wade, for his contemporary photograph of Burnley St James’s Street, taken in 2012, when the former Martins Branch was occupied by Royal Bank of Scotland.

Image © Frith Collection® c.1955 Ref B251024 and used here under licence		Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections - Robert Wade 2012



*Mr F J Mitchell* *Joined the Bank Here* *1916*	*Mr H D Clough* *On the Staff* *1918 to 1928*	*Mr C C Richardes* *Joined the Bank Here* *1919*	*Mr N D Carter* *Joined the Bank Here* *1925*	*Mr C J Verity* *Sub Manager* *1926*	*Mr L R Tomlinson* *On the Staff* *1926 to 1928*



*Mr C C Clark* *Joined the Bank Here* *1930 to 1954*	*Mr E N Banks* *On the Staff* *1934 to 1940*	*Mr P A Scott* *Manager* *1934 to 1943*	*Mr E G Earnshaw* *On Staff 1935 to 1938* *Manager 1959 to 1963*	*Mr J Speak* *Joined the Bank Here* *1936 to 1936*	*Mr K W Baxter* *Joined the Bank Here* *1937 to 1939*



*Mr A S Petty* *Joined the Bank Here* *1938 to 1939*	*Mr A C Preston* *Joined the Bank Here* *1939 to 1948*	*Mr H Ryder* *Joined the Bank here* *1939 to 1947*	*Mr C B Heaton* *Joined the Bank Here* *1942 to 1944*	*Mr N Higson* *Joined Here 1947-51* *On Staff 1961-63*	*Mr S Taylor* *Messenger* *1947 to 1963*



*Mr W Wilby* *Manager* *1943 to 1951*	*Mr K Hartley* *Joined the Bank Here* *1951 to 1952*	*Mr F Simpson* *On the Staff* *1951 to 1957*	*Mr R Westall* *Manager* *1951 to 1961*	*Mr W C M Perkins* *Pro Manager* *1953 to 1957*	*Mr J Clegg* *On the Staff* *1959*



*Mr H V Jobling* *Pro Manager* *1959 to 1963*	*Mr Gerald Carey* *Joined the Bank Here* *1960 to 1961*	*Mr G A Weatherburn* *Sub then Asst Manager* *1961 to 1963*	*Mr F Dixon Assistant Manager* *1962 to 1963*	*Mr G Catton* *On Staff from 1962* *Pro Manager from 1968*	*Miss J M King* *Cashier* *1965*